


Paper Hearts Turned to Ash

by mewantcandy



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, act 10 spoilers, idk what to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:55:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25528540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mewantcandy/pseuds/mewantcandy
Summary: There's something up with Masumi's new seatmate. Maybe if he has the time, he'll unravel that mystery.
Relationships: Ikaruga Madoka & Ikaruga Misumi, Ikaruga Madoka/Usui Masumi, Minagi Tsuzuru & Usui Masumi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	Paper Hearts Turned to Ash

**Author's Note:**

> there's not much madoka content in general, much less madoka and masumi content. this is my first time writing masumi, so i hope it's okay. beware the act 9 and 10 spoilers ahead!
> 
> since they both go to school together, i think, why not make them friends? (of course, since i'm multishipping trash, this is basically pre-slash, but you can read it as platonic or romantic, whichever.)
> 
> regardless, i hope you all like it!

At two in the afternoon, in the middle of class, Masumi was trying his hardest to take a nap.

The keyword there was  _ trying,  _ because their professor had apparently taken notice of his napping habits and had given one of his classmates the  _ absolute honor  _ of having to wake him up.

Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. Masumi was used to this sort of thing happening back in high school, when his teachers would always, without fail, assign the person sitting next to him the role of playing his caretaker of some sort. A single glare was usually sufficient to deter them from trying again, two glares if they were particularly fearless.

His current ‘nanny’ didn’t seem fazed by his glares at all, though. Every few minutes or so, Masumi would drift off to sleep, and a minute later, he would be rudely awoken. Even his darkest glares didn’t deter him.

“So persistent,” Masumi muttered under his breath, straightening as he was woken up for the fifth time. His seatmate didn’t look at him. As usual, right after waking him up, he was back to writing unceasingly on his notebook. “Why don’t you just let me sleep? Isn’t it a bother to have to pause your writing every few minutes?”

“If you’re concerned, then please don’t sleep anymore,” came the flat reply. “It’s only the first day of classes, and you’re already like this.” Masumi rolled his eyes. He didn’t  _ care  _ to know just what ‘like this’ meant.

Well, he wasn’t planning on making things any easier for his seatmate, anyway. He blinked once, twice, scanned the whiteboard in front of the classroom for anything new the professor might have written, then placed his head in his arms.

Music played from his headphones hanging around his neck, soft enough that it wouldn’t attract attention from his classmates, but loud enough that he could still hear it, like background music for their daily classes. He closed his eyes, letting the darkness behind his eyes take over and blanket him in familiar numbness.

A hand rested itself on his arm and shook his violently awake.

"Only two minutes this time," his seatmate said as Masumi grumbled and straightened back up. "Are you getting impatient?"

"I'm getting  _ tired," _ Masumi snapped irritably, giving his seatmate the stink eye. As usual, there was no response afterward. For someone so formal, he definitely was a  _ pain in the ass. _

Masumi sighed in annoyance, eyes flickering to the notebook on his seatmate’s table. It looked faintly familiar, in the way that textbooks looked familiar to any student. Before he could scoot over to take a closer look, an arm blocked his view.

“Please don’t look at other people’s belongings without asking.” His voice was polite as ever, but Masumi could hear a bit of annoyance coloring it. He supposed that counted as a win of some sort.

“Whatever,” he muttered, turning away. There was relative silence for a moment, the only sounds in the room being their professor rambling on in the background and the music drifting from his earphones. His eyes drifted, unbidden, to the sky blue hair of his seatmate. It looked familiar, to say the least, similar to the blue hair of a certain annoyance back at home.

He wondered if it was worth it to try and get some sleep once more. Probably not.

\---

_ Sigh. _

Masumi resisted the urge to just cover his ears. He’d arrived at his class early in the hopes of getting a nap in before it started. That plan went out the drain, though, because his seatmate was sighing  _ so damn loudly.  _ It was irritating. Masumi sent a glare in the hopes of making him quiet down.

“... hm?” But, of course, even Masumi’s darkest glares had no effect on his seatmate, who just started impassively back at him. “Did you need something?”

Masumi opened his mouth to answer -- but he wasn’t sure just  _ what  _ he was planning to say. Be quiet? What are you sighing about? Masumi was saved from having to come to a decision as the phone on his seatmate’s table vibrated.

“It’s father,” his seatmate mumbled, sending Masumi a look that was almost halfway apologetic. “Excuse me.”

He turned away to speak with his father on the phone, and Masumi withheld another sigh. His eyes were drawn to the notebook that once again lay open on his seatmate’s table. His eyes darted over to his seatmate, who was still standing with his back to Masumi. It was troublesome, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a little peek.

_ So this is what he’s been writing.  _ It looked like the plot to a play of some sort. Masumi was familiar with how it looked, having been an unwilling witness to Tsuzuru’s endless nights of writing. He didn’t bother checking the contents. They were none of his business, and they didn’t really interest him either.

His eyes flickered back to his seatmate, still speaking to his father on the phone, but he sounded even more subdued, if that was possible. Masumi huffed and rested his head on his arms, laying down on the desk.

Scriptwriting was something that Masumi was familiar with, if only by proxy. Still, he knew enough to know that whatever his seatmate was writing was  _ good,  _ which was some sort of contrast to the blank expression on his face whenever he was writing.

It wasn’t like Masumi had any right to make observations like that, though. It wasn’t like he ever did anything that particularly interested him.

… ah, except for acting. But that hadn’t been the original intention at all. He was good at it, and he knew it, and he had a muse to look to for guidance and inspiration. Kantoku-san. The thought of her made him think back to what she had told him, once before. He was good, but he needed to put his heart into it. He needed to care about what he was doing.

“-- yes. I understand.”

Maybe he and his seatmate weren’t so different after all.

\---

“Hey. Is something bothering you?”

“You,” Masumi replied instantly, the insult slipping off his tongue easily. “You’re bothering me.”

Tsuzuru didn’t get mad, though. No one really did in this company. Instead, he just sighed. “Cut that and just tell me if something’s wrong,” he said with that long-suffering tone that made it sound like he was talking to one of his younger siblings.

Masumi rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. Hey, answer me something.”

Tsuzuru crossed his arms and sighed, mumbling something about  _ bratty little brothers.  _ “Fine, fine. What is it?”

“When you write scripts,” he said, “how does it make you feel?”

Tsuzuru blinked, his expression shifting into a surprised one, then a thoughtful one. He clearly hadn’t anticipated the question. “Huh. Masumi, it’s pretty unusual for you to be thinking about these things, isn’t it?”

“Shut up,” Masumi said irritably, hands twitching down to his phone to turn the music up just a bit louder. “Just answer the question.”

“Well… Usually, while I’m writing, I either hate it or love it. I mean, I’m sure you’d be able to tell better than me what my face looks like when I’m writing.” Here, Tsuruzu gives a short little laugh. “Afterwards, if it comes out well, then I feel pretty fulfilled.”

“How do you know if it comes out well?”

Tsuzuru shrugs. “I mean… when I put my heart and soul into it, and it just… feels right, you know?”

Masumi thought on that answer for a moment, staring into the wall right behind Tsuzuru’s head as he did. “... okay.” He turned away, pulling his headphones back over his ears and turning his attention down to the assignments spread out on his desk.

Tsuzuru’s shadow moved, and through the music, Masumi could hear faint mumbling. It didn’t matter. His hand moved automatically over the worksheet, filling in the blanks to the questions without giving them too much thought, leaving his mind free to wander.

Masumi had been a part of Tsuzuru’s writing process for years at this point, and he was all-too familiar with the looks that flashed on his face as he wrote. Sometimes he would stick his tongue out in concentration, sometimes he would look infinitely annoyed, sometimes he would look like he was on the verge of passing out.

But Masumi had seen none of those looks on his seatmate’s face. In fact, he wasn’t sure he’d seen any expression on his face at all, in the weeks that they’d been seated together. It was certainly different from Tsuzuru, and most of the actors in Mankai.

Masumi’s thoughts drifted to one of the other actors in the company, one with the same blue hair and the same vibrant yellow eyes as his seatmate. Ikaruga Misumi was as different from his seatmate as could be, but they were similar in other ways, too. Like the gleam in their eyes whenever they were focused, or the way they both tended to bite at their thumbs when something was stressing them out.

Were they related? He’d have to be sure before he did anything unnecessary.

\---

When his seatmate had turned his back, Masumi found his eyes gravitating once more to the script on his table.

“I’m sorry… Understood.”

Masumi paid the call no mind, instead squinting his eyes as he tried to read the words written on the notebook. For someone who was usually so neat and tidy, his handwriting was horrible. Masumi could barely make out the words, and he clicked his tongue in annoyance.

It didn’t seem to be a whole script for a play. Rather, it looked like a loose plot outline, with little paragraphs of words under each main plot point. Little circles filled in the margins of the notebooks, overlapping and forming patterns that looked faintly familiar.

A hand snapped in front of his face. Masumi looked up. “Don’t look at others’ belongings without asking.” His face was blank as ever, his voice still the same in its flat formality.

“... do you have any siblings?”

His seatmate blinked. He looked almost surprised, Masumi noted with some twisted sense of satisfaction, eyes wide, mouth just slightly agape. “Huh?”

“Siblings,” Masumi repeated. Once again, his seatmate’s expression changed, turning into one of faint unease before it was swiftly hidden back up under a blank expression. “It’s none of your business,” he tried, but Masumi wasn’t having it.

“Just answer my question.”

His seatmate turned away, seemingly ignoring Masumi’s query. Well, whatever, Masumi thought, tamping down his irritation, though it still made itself known in the roll of his eyes. If he wasn’t going to answer, then Masumi wasn’t going to waste his energy pushing for an answer.

He set about collecting his things so he could get home sooner.

“... I don’t have any.”

His seatmate still wasn’t looking at him, but Masumi’s hands stilled, and his gaze turned to the back of his shirt. The answer had been given flatly, with no inflection whatsoever, and Masumi wasn’t sure whether that made it more likely to be a truth or a lie.

“... what? Do you--”

“Found him! The rumored freshman!”

Both Masumi and his seatmate turned to the source of the yelling. Masumi sighed, pulling his headphones up to his ears, but a hand wrapped around his wrist, keeping him from doing so. Masumi scowled and yanked his hand away, but the upperclassman didn’t look fazed. “You’re Usui Masumi, right?”

“Hah?” Masumi’s scowl only deepened, and he opened his mouth to snap something, but the upperclassman’s attention had already been stolen by his seatmate. “Huh? Ikaruga-kun?”

_ Ikaruga? _

“Fukunaga-senpai…”

“Good timing! Can the two of you come with me?”

Fukunaga’s fingers were already wrapped around Masumi’s wrist once more, but Masumi could barely protest against the force pulling him away much too quickly. He barely had time to pick up his bag before he was dragged off.

As Fukunaga led them off to wherever, Masumi and Ikaruga shared a glance. Yellow eyes stared back at him, looking resigned to his fate.

_ Ikaruga. _

The two of them were dragged to a little club room on the ground floor of the building. “Sorry it’s so messy here!” Fukunaga said, kicking around boxes filled with various sorts of props in order to make space. “I’ve been thinking of cleaning it up, but I don’t have anyone to help.”

“So you still haven’t found any club members?” Ikaruga asked. His voice was polite, saying it like a fact, but Fukunaga jolted. “Ah… man, the only thing increasing here is the number of ghost members,” he said. “Back in the day, we used to be so active.”

Masumi rolled his eyes, but Fukunaga didn’t seem to notice, too engrossed in his sob story to pay him any mind. “A lot of our alumni also joined popular theater troupes,” he continued. “One of them even became the top actor of GODza--”

“What do you want?” If he was going to keep rambling on, then Masumi would be better off just leaving. He held on the strap of his bag with one bag, feeling tired. He wanted to get back home, already.

“Sorry, sorry,” Fukunaga said, not looking sorry at all. “Masumi-kun, can you join our play at the upcoming campus festival? It’s the only thing we do now, really, but I want to deliver a complete play since our alumni are coming to watch!” There was a sparkle in his eyes that reminded Masumi of a certain someone who was always way too excited about acting. “I’m sure that the play will be a success if you, Usui Masumi, join us!”

Masumi didn’t spare a second to think about it.

“Pass.”

“Huh?!”

Masumi turned and moved to pull his headphones up over his ears.

“Can I go as well?”

“Wait, Madoka-kun! I want to ask you to write a script for us this year.”

Masumi paused in his movements.

Ikaruga Madoka sighed. “The script from last year was merely a practice piece that I didn’t plan on turning in anywhere,” he said, as if he was speaking to a particularly slow learner. “I have to write a script for another matter now, so I can’t write one for the club.”

Fukunaga didn’t seem to be listening. “But the script from last year was so interesting! I look forward to seeing what you’ll write this year!”

“I just said--”

“So you  _ were  _ writing a script.” Madoka turned to look at him. “So what?” he asked. He seemed defensive, almost. Masumi paused, then shook his head. “Nothing. I just thought you looked really bored while writing.”

“... eh?”

“The guy I know seems to have so much fun writing,” Masumi said by way of explanation, but the confused expression on Madoka’s face didn’t fade. “... even I--”

Masumi waited, but Madoka didn’t seem like he was going to continue his sentence. Fukunage moved to fill in the silence, but Masumi was already tuning him out, shutting out his pleas with a sharp  _ not interested  _ as he turned to leave.

\---

Misumi was always on the roof. Masumi wasn’t sure why. It was always such a hassle to go all the way up there, so he stood below the spot where Misumi’s legs dangled in the air, cupping his hands around his mouth.

“Hey!” he called.

There was a scuffle from above as Misumi’s legs disappeared onto the roof, replaced by his wide yellow eyes. “Did you call me?” he asked. Masumi nodded. “Do you have siblings?”

“Haha~ yep!”

Misumi did a shuffle, getting to his feet before he hopped haphazardly off the roof. Masumi jumped back as he landed safely on his feet.  _ This guy… _

Well, whatever. That wasn’t why he was here. “I saw a guy named Ikaruga writing a script at the campus.”

Misumi tilted his head, making an exaggerated noise of surprise. “Eh? How does he look?”

“His hair is like this,” Masumi said, reaching forward and drawing the outline of Madoka’s hair next to Misumi’s head. “He’s calmer than you, and speaks politely.”

Misumi thought for a second, then grinned brightly. “That’s Madoka! He’s my little brother,” he announced proudly. Masumi wondered if he was imagining the strange look in his eyes.

“But that guy said he doesn’t have any siblings.”

Misumi’s smile faltered for a second before brightening back up, but Masumi knew what he saw. “Mmh… you know, I’ve been told not to come near home, and my father treats me like I’m invisible, so it can’t be helped if Madoka lies about not having any siblings!” Masumi could hear the underlying thought.  _ He doesn’t want a sibling like me, after all. _

Masumi thought he could feel a sense of understanding with the triangle-obsessed actor, and maybe that was what drove him to continue speaking, instead of turning around to leave. “He seemed uneasy when he was lying,” he said. “Maybe your brother actually cares about you.”

Misumi’s eyes lit up, though they were still sad. “Is that so? I hope it’s true,” he said, somewhat wistfully. There was silence for a moment. Masumi turned to leave.

“Ah, wait! Masumi’s so kind, I’ll give him the triangle I found just now!” Misumi grinned brightly, proudly presenting a small triangular guitar pick. Masumi stared at it for a second, then snorted.

“Don’t need it.”

“Eh~?!”

\---

“You wrote that, right?”

“Huh?” Madoka startled, turning to face Masumi. “Why are you…?”

“I could say the same for you,” Masumi said, leaning over the table to serve himself another ladle of curry that Kantoku-san had made. “Why are you here?”

Of course, he knew why Madoka was here. Something about how Kantoku-chan wanted to speak with the director of GODza, and had invited the stars of tonight’s show to partake in their celebratory dinner.

Madoka hesitated to answer, but was saved by his brother. “Madoka!” he exclaimed, grinning brightly, but Masumi noted how he kept his hands to himself. “Masumi’s a part of the Spring Troupe!”

“So you  _ do  _ have a brother,” Masumi said, turning his head to face Madoka head on. The blank expression he usually wore was gone, replaced by a red-faced, almost embarrassed expression. “... yes. I’m sorry for that time.”

Masumi waved a hand. “I don’t think I’m the one you should be saying sorry to.”

He took a bite of his curry as Madoka went to apologize to his brother. “Hey,” he said, interrupting their conversation. Two sets of yellow eyes blinked at him. Masumi thought they looked similar.

“You still haven’t answered my question. You wrote that play that GODza performed, right?”

Madoka nodded, and something else washed over his expression, like a thin, translucent layer of pride over his impassive face. “I did.”

Masumi stared for a moment, then looked away. “It was good,” he said. “You must have worked hard on it.”

He didn’t have to look to feel the surprised gaze that he was leveled with. He shoved the last few spoonfuls of curry into his mouth and stood up, leaving his dirty plate on the table. “Masumi-san,” Madoka said. Masumi didn’t turn around, but he stopped in his place, hands halfway up to pull his headphones back over his ears.

“If I have time, I’ll be writing a script for the theater club. Will you act in it?”

Masumi pulled his headphones up. “I’ll think about it.”

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! come find me on twitter, link in my profile.


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